Review: Alizé Gold Passion Liqueur

Alizé treads that fine line between high-end product and pop culture joke (when Tupac raps about your product, well…), but its pedigree speaks for itself: A blend of cognac and passion fruit juice (and other unspecified fruit juices), this is high-end stuff.

The problem is figuring out how to use it. Alizé (which has been around since 1984; this Gold Passion version was originally introduced to the U.S. in 1986) is an interesting liqueur, but it’s difficult to work with. Others seem to have had as little luck as I have: Most published cocktail recipes using the spirit call for flavored rums, Hawaiian punch, or even Kool-Aid in the mix. My attempts to come up with much better have pretty much failed. The cocktails always end up tasting like Sunny Delight.

Still, it needs something besides ice: Alizé Gold on its own has a quite pleasant flavor of passion fruit and orange, but it’s thick and viscous, almost smoothie-like in consistency. This is at odds with the impressive fruitiness of the spirit, and makes it tough to drink on its own. (It’s also kind of a pain that, because it’s just 32 proof and his real fruit juice in it, it has to be refrigerated after opening.)

Now being refreshed with a new bottle/label design (and featuring five different versions).